“When we finally finished this collection, I felt like, Okay, if I made this happen, then I can achieve peace in the Middle East.”

Kanye West’s A.P.C. menswear collection sold out within a matter of hours after it went on sale on the brand’s website

Jean Touitou said the resulting jeans, T-shirt and hoodie are “precious” pieces to both he and Kanye West “because it took time and thoughts to get there”.

He admitted to GQthat he had no idea who Kanye West was when they first met more than two years ago.

“A visitor to the A.P.C. studio was announced to me as <<Kenny>>. He wanted my advice on the fashion industry. . . He had nice manners and spoke about losing his mother in a surgery accident, about losing his girlfriend too, and about how difficult doing the right thing in fashion was.

“After a while, I was curious to know what this gentleman was currently doing in his life. I simply asked him: <<May I know what your trade is, sir?>> He took his shades down, so that finally I could see his eyes, and answered me: <<I am a hip hop artist>>.”

The collaboration between Kanye West and Jean Touitou was announced on last weekend via the APC Instagram feed, with an image of blue jeans featuring a red label bearing the words “A.P.C. KANYE”.

“I fight every single day to try to expand that, and to try to show different types of beauty.

“So sometimes my girls will win America’s Next Top Model, and then call me crying, saying they don’t fit any of the clothes at Fashion Week, and so that’s a challenge that we have.

“But it’s what the Tyra Banks company stands for, it’s what America’s Next Top Model stands for … is not having a cookie cutter.”

One of the Victoria’s Secret original angels, Tyra Banks says she’s proud of Vogue magazine.

“They just started an initiative where they’re going to pay attention to girls that they feel are unhealthy, not treating themselves their bodies right – and hopefully they won’t just have a size double zero on the runway.”

She added: “If that was the rule when I started high fashion modelling back in the day, I wouldn’t be on the stage right now, because there is no way even one of my thoighs could have gotten into a double zero.”

The high-profile entrepreneur, who famously prefers the term “fiercely real” over “plus-size” for models that aren’t double zeros, said she believes “things are changing slowly” in her industry.

“Sophia Loren and Marilyn Munroe and Jane Mansfield … the thing is with women’s bodies, our bodies go in and out of fashion.

“One decade it’s about curves, and another decade it’s about being thin, if you think about Twiggy’s era.

“Then another decade it’s about being athletic, if you think about the Eighties; then the Nineties was even more athletic – you have to have a six pack – like Janet Jackson.

“And then the new millennium was about being super stick thin, then for a little bit you had to have a big bootie like Beyonce and Kim Kardashian … and now it’s like, ‘Ooh you gotta be skinny again – but not too skinny.

“It’s really sad that as women, we cannot be really beautiful in our differences. It’s a sad fact that women have to live with.”

Vogue magazine has been the world’s fashion bible for decades, its pages adorned with beautiful clothes – all too often modeled by painfully thin women.

Now, in a groundbreaking move, Vogue has pledged it will no longer use photographs of dangerously underweight models.

In a statement published across all of its 19 international editions on Thursday, Vogue’s editors promised not to picture models under the age of 16 or those who they believe have an eating disorder.

Vogue’s editors said the six-point pact, called The Health Initiative, aims to encourage a healthier approach to body image within the fashion industry, which has been lambasted for promoting anorexia.

Alexandra Shulman, editor of British Vogue, said: “As one of the fashion industry’s most powerful voices, Vogue has a unique opportunity to engage with relevant issues where we feel we can make a difference.”

Vogue also promised to take more measures to look after models, including protecting their privacy and giving them healthy food and drinks backstage at shoots and fashion shows.

In a statement published across all of its 19 international editions on Thursday, Vogue’s editors promised not to picture models under the age of 16 or those who they believe have an eating disorder

Editors agreed to be “ambassadors” for a healthy image and “not knowingly work with models under the age of 16 or who appear to have an eating disorder”.

They added: “We will work with models who, in our view, are healthy and help to promote a healthy body image.”

Girls under the age of 16 have already been banned from catwalks in London and the US, but this is the first time a magazine has issued its own standards.

In 2009, Alexandra Shulman spoke out against the practice of designers providing tiny sample sizes.

She sent a strongly worded letter to fashion houses saying she had been forced to hire girls “with jutting bones and no breasts or hips” so they could get into the clothes.

The letter also revealed Vogue regularly re-touched pictures to make models look healthier.

And in their statement, Vogue editors said they would encourage designers “to consider the consequences of unrealistically small sample sizes of their clothing, which limits the range of women who can be photographed in their clothes, and encourages the use of extremely thin models”.

Vogue will also ask modelling agencies not to send underage girls, and for them to check models’ ages when they are photographed for shoots.

The health of catwalk models was brought into the spotlight five years ago, when two young South American models died from what appeared to be complications related to eating disorders.

Their deaths lead to the British Fashion Council banning the use of models under 16, but they are still used in magazines.

Proposals for medical checks were shelved because they were seen as too intrusive.

And Britain has not gone as far as countries including Italy and Spain, which ban catwalk models whose body mass index is below a certain level.

Sara Ziff, 29, a former teen model and the founder of The Model Alliance, a US union which aims to improve working conditions in the fashion industry, welcomed the move.

She said: “Most editions of Vogue regularly hire models who are minors, so for Vogue to commit to no longer using models under the age of 16 marks an evolution in the industry.”

In a survey, Sara Ziff found more than half of models start working between the ages of 13 and 16.

“Vogue editors around the world want the magazines to reflect their commitment to the health of the models who appear on the pages and the wellbeing of their readers.”

In addition to agreeing not to knowingly work with models under 16 or with eating disorders, the Vogue pact says the magazines will help “structure mentoring programmes” for younger models and raise awareness of the problem of model health.

The publisher of Vogue, Conde Nast, is also responsible for several other magazines, including Glamour and Allure, but a spokesperson said there are no current plans for these guidelines to be adopted across the company.

Daphne Selfe, the world’s oldest supermodel, agreed to pose as Madonna in her prime.

And if that were not enough, Daphne Selfe, 83, is wearing only the iconic conical bra and corset made by Jean Paul Gaultier for Madonna’s Blonde Ambition tour in 1990.

It’s a replica, but it’s still “terribly unforgiving. I thought they might have done a bit of airbrushing!” says Daphne Selfe, joking.

“I’m not that brave. I used to pose nude, you know, for artists including Barbara Hepworth.”

For a woman who has spent a lifetime in front of the camera, Daphne Selfe is surprisingly without vanity.

“So dreadful, which is why I normally wear long sleeves. My body is OK when I lie down, it settles rather. But, hey, what the hell, it was all for a good cause.”

The cause is Oxfam’s Big Bra Hunt. Apparently, the average woman in the UK owns nine bras, three of which she never wears. And while we readily donate clothes to charity, most of us don’t realize that women in developing countries need our bras, too.

But while we are all now aware that we should not send our clothes to landfill, it seems the fashion industry is still intent on treating its models as eminently disposable. Which is why Daphne Selfe is such a great figurehead (and body) for this campaign about longevity, and making women who are not, for whatever reason, inclined to shop in La Perla feel included.

“I’ve never had anything done to my face,” Daphne Selfe says, pulling it this way and that.

“Not that poison, not a facelift. I think it’s a waste of money. Anyway, I couldn’t afford it!”

Daphne Selfe, the oldest world’s supermodel, agreed to pose as Madonna in her prime

So how on earth does she do it, remain so fit, so lively in her slacks and flats, so amazing!

“I think it’s partly down to good genes. My mother was a livewire, she lived until she was 95. I’ve never really bothered with skin cream or anything like that, although I might use a bit of Boots. I hate anything you can’t take the top off and dig around for what’s left in the bottom.

“I did dye my hair at home for a while when I started to go grey in my early 40s. Occasionally, I would go into L’Oreal as a guinea pig, but it became too much of a bother.

“My hair is long now because it’s cheaper, I don’t have to do anything, but put it in a topknot or a French pleat. It avoids that old lady permed look, lengthens the neck and lifts the face. I’ve got so many friends who don’t touch the make-up pot. You should keep looking nice, it makes you feel so much better.”

Daphne Selfe looks beautiful, but so very different to today’s models: she has a tiny waist (“It was 24in, today it’s 27in! At least I haven’t got fat”), but rather chunky thighs, and wide shoulders.

“I would never have made it starting out today,” Daphne Selfe admits.

“I was too short, just 5ft 7in, with wide shoulders from all the riding I did as a young girl. But no one ever asked me to lose weight. Rationing was in place until 1954, so you were always grateful to get good food.”

Daphne Selfe grew up in Berkshire, UK, the daughter of a teacher, and was packed off to boarding school at eight. At the age of 20, working as a “shop girl in coats” in a Reading department store, she entered a local newspaper’s modeling competition and won.

“I’d been told I was nice looking a couple of times, but no, not really. I then started working steadily, it was wonderful.

“In those days, all models had training, we were shown how to walk and stand elegantly.

“I started off modeling fur, which in those days wasn’t controversial. I did mainly work as a house model, and a few advertisements. We were often photographed holding a cigarette, and I didn’t even smoke!

“But when I got married in 1954, I assumed I would never work again. My family came first. We weren’t well off, but that didn’t really matter. It’s dreadful women today have to work and can’t look after their families.”

Asked about what she thinks of fashion these days, Daphne Selfe said: “They don’t look in the mirror, do they? I do think women are too sloppy these days. No matter where I was going, I had a hat, and matching bags and shoes. Like all girls in those days I made the most of my own clothes. Not like models today, who seem to wear skinny jeans between shows. I always wore a roll-on corset. Never leggings! Just dreadful!”

Daphne Selfe has three children – Mark, 57, Claire, 53, and Rose, 51 – and although she soon got her figure back, she assumed motherhood meant the end of her modeling career.

“I fell out of fashion in the Sixties,” she says.

“I was what you called rather strapping, at 10½ stone! So I continued with a bit of acting work, and was an extra in films.”

Did she fear getting older, having worked as a model?

“It’s going to happen, so why worry? My generation got on with it. I do find people are always complaining these days. I try to remain cheerful, not grumpy. I’ve developed glaucoma, but the drops I have to put in my eyes have made my lashes grow! So there is always a plus side.

“I think it’s important to remain passionate about things. I’m going to a meeting later about saving our local church, and I’m off to France next week to see the village that is twinned with the one where I live in Hertfordshire. I garden, I walk a lot and I do yoga – my version of yoga, I don’t have time for classes.

“I can email! I’ve always worked, too, bits and pieces, right up until when my husband became very ill.”

Daphne Selfe’s husband, Jim, who worked in television, suffered a series of strokes.

“He was cantankerous. He got frustrated. He was all right with others, but at home he was not good!” says Daphne Selfe.

She cared for him full-time until he died in 1997, aged 72. But Daphne Selfe doesn’t dwell on the negatives.

“I couldn’t have done [modeling], could I? Looking after him, it would never have happened. I’ve been lucky.”

In 1998, Daphne Selfe was asked to appear on the catwalk for Red or Dead.

“I said: <<Ooh, goodie>>. I love wearing clothes and mucking about.”

The stylist suggested her to go to Vogue, who were creating a special issue about age.

That photograph, taken by Nick Knight, led to her being signed up by Models 1.

Does she feel, over a decade later, that she is still the token older woman rather than an ideal of beauty?

“Oh no, I don’t think so. I’m doing more high fashion now than I did as a young woman, I think because at last I’ve lost the puppy fat! You can see the bones in my face. I’ve worked with Mario Testino, he was so kind, and Rankin – I knew his parents, both dead now – and Dolce & Gabbana.

“I’m always working in Paris, quite often with designer Fanny Karst, who does wonderful clothes for the elderly. I find you have to be fit to brave Primark, but I do shop there.

“I tend to wear all the clothes I have in my wardrobe from decades ago: every style seems to come round again. The only thing I can no longer wear is high heels, my feet have vasculitis, a weakness and numbness. But from my ankles up I’m OK.”

How do the younger models treat her?

“They are so lovely to me. They tell me they want to look like me when they get older. But they are babies.”

Was the fashion world nicer in her day?

“I imagine there were drugs, and alcohol. But I was so innocent, I never noticed that.”

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